Istorijos šaltinių tyrimai / Studies in Historical Sources

Wallach measurement register of Balninkai estate of 1554 is prominent in the historiography by virtue of one of its copies of 1803 (the original has not been preserved). Fragments of the copy were translated from the Polish language into Lithuanian and published in a journal of local history, though limited to the contemporary boundaries of Balninkai subdistrict (valsčius). The new publication in the original (Polish) language offers evaluation of the four known copies of the document dating back to the 18th century which expanded the possibilities to more thoroughly utilize information potential of this source and helped establish the prototype of the copies, namely a record from the treasury archive of the GDL of 1645, inscribed into the Books of the Lithuanian Metrica of the Grand Chancery of the GDL in 1722, as well as identify the Sovereign’s land-surveyor Jonas Filipovičius Kobylinskis (Ян Филипович Кобылиньский) who conducted the wallach measurement of Balninkai estate in 1554 and who has hitherto been unknown to historiography. This publication is intended to supplement the published documentary heritage of the great agrarian Wallach Reform pursued in the state estates of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in 1547–1566, which for the most part consists of inventories. When publishing the source of the 18th century in the Polish language, recommendations of the latest publications of sources in Polish issued by the Archeography Department of the Lithuanian Institute of History have been taken into consideration. As the texts of the register of 1554 have been preserved only in duplicates, graphic charts and tables characteristic of inventories failed to come down to us and the document contains plain text. Therefore, striving to make the inventory easier to read, it was divided not only into notional sentences but also rubricated putting the headings in bold. Numbers indicated in words next to wallachs, morgens and rods (perches) were substituted with Arabic numerals, leavings words for numbers in such cases where the document dwells on the quantity of fields (sianozęc, pole) or places (mieyscy). Thus we expected to avoid problems related to the allocation of numbers. For example: Druga sianozęc w drugim koncu tych dwuch pol na imie Dubica morgow pułszosta → Druga sianozęc w drugim koncu tych dwuch pol na imie Dubica morgow 5½. Numerals followed by dots were used as wallach serial numbers: pierwsza, Maciey Staniewicz włoka podła, woły, kłacz → 1. Maciey Staniewicz włoka podła, woły, kłacz. Repetitive elements in wallach lists were contracted: pierwsza pusta włoka podła; wtora pusta włoka podła; trzecia pusta włoka podła → 1.–3. Pusta włoka podła. Notes to the publication contain only the current location of identified toponyms (ežeras (lake) – ež., kaimas (village) – k.; miestas (city) – m.; miestelis (town) – mst.; rajonas (district) – raj.; seniūnija (sub-district) – sen.; viensėdis (steading) –vs.). In order not to overburden the publication with footnotes, we only marked the first mentioning of a toponym, indicating in the footnote itself all the pages of the LM 160 book featuring the toponym in question and providing the peculiarities of its orthography. When dealing with the most important villages of Balninkai estate, we marked references next to the descriptions of the said villages. Notes also provide explanations with regard to anonymous persons mentioned by their office only, if such data was available in information literature in our disposition.

The author has reviewed the debatable critique of the publication of Vilnius City Council book of 1657–1662 and offers a few comments. In his opinion, a number of remarks made by the author of the critique with regard to flaws spotted in the publication are correct and his reasoning on the principles of publication should be taken into consideration, however, this is just one of several possible options. It should be noted that the reviewer has allocated a significant part of his text to presentation of historical facts hardly related to the topic of the critique at times referring to authors who had research the topic earlier, yet failing to accurately indicate sources, therefore this review is not considered as functional enough and is viewed as a significant step backwards in the sense of scientific correctitude and at times even scientific ethics. The reviewer’s aspirations to offer a scientific review should be complimented, however, due to the aforementioned reasoning that has little to do with scientific correctitude and facts, the review under consideration cannot be viewed as a successful realization of the said aspirations.

The article, which retrospectively covers the publication of sources of the 18th century in Lithuania in the period from the 1910s to present, aims at highlighting the main groups of published sources and discussing problems faced by publishers of texts in other languages. The first half of the 20th century should be considered the beginning of the publication of sources referring to the 18th century. In the said period, the focus lay on sources in the Lithuanian language. Systematic issuing of sources of the 18th century drawn up in other languages (Latin, Ruthenian, Polish and German) was initiated only in the 1950s. Most sources of the 18th century appeared in serial publications. Objectives set by each series of sources reflected on the selection of external sources for publication and the mode of their preparation for printing (facsimile edition, publication in the original language, publication of translation, etc.). In the Soviet times series of source publications were mostly based on the inter-institutional principle and were organized around a certain publishing house, however, the restoration of Lithuania’s independence, the major publication works have been pursued in academic institutes. Publication of sources reflects the mission and strategic objectives of a certain academic institution. Universities, however, play only a minor role in source publication. Documents and other narrative sources have hitherto been prepared for publication with no obligation to comply with certain unanimous system of source preparation or unified principles of their publication. Neither obligatory nor recommendatory instructions for the preparation for publication of a source in another language have been offered. Both – different historiographical schools, their attitude and traditions, character of published sources and the fact that sources are prepared and published by representatives of different fields of science (philology, history, philosophy, art criticism, musicology) with individual approach to the value produced by the source and at times little willingness to cooperate, are accountable for the situation. In each situation different principles of source publication apply which, subject to the nature of the source, requirements posed to the publication and attitude of the editor, can vary even when publishing books in one series. Analysis of published sources allows for the distinguishing of three main trends in the preparation of texts of the 18th century in the Polish language: 1) graphic representation of the authentic source; 2) modernization of the published texts through “correction” of “mistakes”, usage of upper and lower case letters in accordance with the rules of orthography of the contemporary Polish language and introduction of punctuation marks to facilitate the understanding of at times particularly lengthy sentences of the published text, etc.; 3) opting for the “golden mean” with a view to combine both methods of text representation. All these modes of publishing have certain advantages and disadvantages. The most urgent problem is “modernization” of the text when speaking about the preparation for publication of written records made in the Lithuanian territories of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. It is obvious that the time has come to make a decision with regard to the drafting of new publication principles to a greater extent adapted to the Lithuanian contexts, designed to preserve the specificity of texts created in Lithuania and facilitate the analysis of the relics of the Lithuanian language preserved in Polish writings.